Friday, January 17th, 2014 at 12:05am

Utah-based metalcore band Chelsea Grin is gearing up to release its new album, “Ashes to Ashes.”

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Confidence is key. This is something Utah-based deathcore band Chelsea Grin has learned over the years.

The band is gearing up to release its new album, “Ashes to Ashes,” this year. It’s been three years since its last album, “My Damnation,” in 2011.

“One album is a huge difference,” says Alex Koehler during a recent interview. “We love our old material, but like any musician, old stuff is old stuff. When you get better as a band, you want to write different things.”

Koehler says over the course of two years, the band got together to brainstorm where it wanted to go with “Ashes to Ashes.”

“We wanted it to include ideas that date back to our EP but open up to things we listen to now and we’re taking the time to connect with our audience more,” he says. “We didn’t want to put out the typical deathcore album.”

Koehler says when the band wrote the first album, “Desolation of Eden,” it was in a different place and has since grown.

“David (Flinn) was still in the Army and Dan (Jones) joined the band on the way to the studio,” he says. “Since we released ‘Desolation of Eden’ and ‘My Damnation’ we’ve had a stable lineup and we’ve become more confident.”

The band’s current lineup includes Koehler, Jason Richardson, Jack Harmond, Jones, David Flinn and Pablo Viveros. The band started when the guys were in high school and listened to bands like Whitechapel, Emmure and Job For A Cowboy. After some brief tours, the band was signed to Artery Recordings.

“We’ve been really lucky to have had the support from fans and a label,” he says. “We all took this chance right out of high school and it’s beginning to pay off. We’ve toured nonstop around the world to make this all happen and now we’ve got a new record to show our growth.”